The Marriage Edition – Improving Communication, Pt. 2

Because Sweet Husband and I just celebrated our second anniversary last month and because I feel like I talk about our relationship quite a bit, I’ve decided that at least for the next little while, my posts on Thursdays will be about marriage – some of the issues we face, the things that work for us, articles, perspectives, posts that I find useful in helping us create a stronger bond. Feel free to share what is working for you in your relationship as we spend some time focused on marriage.

In last week’s post, we talked about improving communication in a relationship. I have to say that I perhaps didn’t take much of that advice to heart as it’s been another somewhat difficult week. I think part of the problem is that I’m frustrated in other areas of my life which makes it really easy to be frustrated in all of the areas of my life. That’s not fair or even remotely close to being right. I don’t think that Sweet Husband and I are in any danger; I just think that the distance and the time that we’ve been away from each other without a dedicated period to reconnect and take care of some of the things that have been bothering the both of us.

It is a wonderful thing to be busy and have things to do, but occasionally it’s also really, really nice to just be at rest – to take a moment to just be and take stock of the things that need to be done, the things that have been done, and the things that can wait. We’ve been going and going and going for the last couple of months – something to do or somewhere to go every weekend and there has not been any down time for us.

In Monday’s post, I said that the house was getting to the point where I needed to clean and organize it. I need to go through it and get rid of things. There needs to be a deep, deep cleaning, which hasn’t really happened since I started working in Hattiesburg. At the end of September. Sweet Husband is doing the best that he can, and I appreciate all that he has done. Truly. But when I come home, all I can see right now is what needs to be done, and that affects my ability to be fully present in our relationship. Somehow this weekend, even though I’m supposed to be attending a photography workshop and we’re going to be going to a crawfish boil, that deep cleaning has to happen. It has to. I can’t take it any more. I can’t handle the stress and the strain that it’s putting on our relationship because it makes me so cranky, which I then in turn take out on my Sweet Husband.

All of that to say that what I really need to say to Sweet Husband is, “I’m being a bitch right now because I’m worried about this, I’m irritated about that, and I’m trying to figure this out. Right now, even the very little things are making me crankier and not much is funny.” And I don’t know why I haven’t said that to him. It’s not like I can say something to him that is going to make him go away – it’s not like I have to pretend in front of him. We are stronger together than we are apart.

I am just used to relying on myself. He tells me all the time that I should let him in, that I need to let him help me with things. One of these days I will learn, and I will let him in on it all rather than taking it all out on him. In the meantime, I remain a work in progress, thankful for his patience.

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I'm a teacher, writer, and photographer capturing the magical moments of life on the Mississippi Gulf Coast - putting my experience as a teacher and educational staff developer to work crafting stories that chronicle an experience well-lived.

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